I was up bright and early on New Year's Day at Gero Hot Springs and stopped on my way to the open air baths to check out the scenery from the rooftop of the hotel. The air was crisp and clean, cold but sharp and refreshing under a bright blue sky.
Twenty-four hours later, I padded out onto the hotel roof again... and the view had vanished into white. Snow was falling on snow, filling the valley and softening every outline. The river, the buildings, the distant slopes – all of it was still there, but hidden, as if the landscape had been quietly erased and redrawn. Sound seemed muted. Distance was harder to judge. What had felt open the day before now felt enclosed.
This is what winter is like on the edge of Japan's "Snow Country." I spliced the two panning videos together to show the contrast between the two consecutive mornings at the very beginning of the year.
I returned to Hiroshima where it was also snowing, but Hiroshima snow is wetter than the crisp snow that was falling and laying at Gero. The snow only started laying deep in the night, and during the morning of the 3rd January it was already melting in the sunshine, which caused great chunks of melting snow to slide off the roofs and crash to the ground.
Considering how hard it had been snowing, our return journey went without a hitch. Train from Gero Onsen to Nagoya, then the bullet train to Hiroshima, and then a local train to our suburb, and finally - the only delay - we travelled a couple of stops on the city tram (5 minutes late) to our destination.
Cheers!
▶️ 3Speak